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What is a good height for men?

Agniva Banerjee on how six-footers today are feeling short and what research has to say about height and health.

| Jul 1, 2007, 00:18 IST

On a cold January morning in 1998, Mohammad Azam was hammering home a point at a Lucknow University debate. The hammering was being done literally. A big fist was furiously pounding the lectern, scaring the girls in the front row of the audience.Azam was delivering pristine bullshit in a deep baritone.

He was making enough noise to give drivel the force of logic. The tactic often worked in college. Grazing the six-foot mark in combat boots, Azam was a big man. He was intimidating. He walked away from the podium like a tiger.

Nine years later Azam became an alley cat. Between college and the reality of manhood, the 29-year-old went through a sobering lesson. "I was the tallest boy in class. No one dared cross my path. The guys used to look up to me," says Azam, now a Delhi-based ad executive, with a tinge of nostalgia. "Girls never approached me, but I know there were secret admirers." Then he went abroad.

On an assignment to Berlin four years ago, he found himself floundering in a sea of humanity. "I was feeling like a midget. All around me were towering hulks." Azam returned to India a bitter man. But the worst was yet to come. He gradually started realising that the tall boys of Generation Next were on average a couple of inches taller than him. There was nothing special about his height anymore.

Azam is not alone. Talking to most six-footers in their late 20s reveals similar tales of bruised egos. For these former greats, life at six feet is now full of dreary ordinariness. Six feet is still a good height, it is still a respectable height, but it is no longer a commanding presence.

A good height, in a disputable generalisation, is a result of good nutrition and genes that were once favoured. From an evolutionary point of view, before the age of intelligence dawned, height greatly influenced a man's fortunes. It was a sign of health, strength and survival. That's why, scientists say, even today women find tall men attractive. The UN considers height a vital measure of a country's nutritional standards. Of late, an entire discipline has come up around the subject of height.

Anthropometric history grew in the mid '70s as a field of inquiry into how "physical stature can be used as an indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socio-economic environment". The definition is by John Komlos, professor of economics at Munich University, who is regarded as the top anthropometric historian today. Komlos, through several studies, has tried to establish a clear link between nutrition and growth. We need not look far, Komlos says.

In a telephonic conversation with TOI, he explained that in just over 150 years, the Dutch, from being the lilliputs of Europe, have become the tallest people in the world averaging a height of 6'1/2'' for men. They achieved the feat due to their welfare economy where every citizen has easy access to good food and quality healthcare. In contrast, Americans, over the same period of time, have lost their universal lead as the tallest people on earth. Clearly, capitalism's reward system, which punishes the multitudes for the benefit of a few, has played a part here. That is why American presidents are disproportionately tall, as are governors, senators and CEOs, while the gas station guy hovers at the average.

"Dutch men have grown by seven inches in the last 150 years," Komlos says. In contrast, the average height of Americans hasn't increased in the last several decades. Average heights in other European welfare economies have increased at a rate similar to that of Holland. But the most dramatic spurts in height have taken place in Japan and China where men now average around 5'7''.

Will height in welfare societies continue to increase? If well-fed and well-cared-for boys have been gaining an inch over their dads, are men headed for collective gigantism? "I believe the Dutch are not going to grow taller," says Komlos. "They may grow by a centimetre more to reach a peak height of 6'1'', but they are unlikely to grow beyond that." The reason is an average height of more than 6'1'' does not offer any evolutionary advantages to a population.

"Men who grow taller than 6'1'' experience medical problems like a bad back. Also, it has been statistically found that longevity in males increases up to a height of 6'1'' but starts decreasing thereafter."

Perhaps Azam in his combat boots, and all six-footers in their late 20s should stop feeling low. One can conclude from Komlos that the respectable height of six feet is also the ideal height for men.

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